a bleeding purple utah jazz blog

Game 37 @ DAL: No Harpring? No Problem

“[Dick]’s a great player…we hacked the s–stuff out of him tonight.” — Kyle Korver, after the game.

There was effort. There was defense. There were made shots. There was taking care of the ball. –> There was mass confusion among Jazz fans over who were those guys playing in Jazz uniforms.

–Was “family and friends in the house” a factor? Deron shot the ball better than we’ve seen all season, and hit some huge 3s. He also dished it nine times, only had 2 TOs, and for the first time in I don’t know how long, didn’t look like he was playing frustrated.

–AK had another strong showing (9-8-4-3-1), and did a little of everything while playing a little of every position. He provided a steadying hand when the Jazz gave in to their natural instincts late in the third/early in the fourth and started to give the game away. Side note: AK is not just the best that we have at getting to the line, he’s the only player we have that gets to the line every night.

–Also doing a little of everything? Ronnie B, who’s been unusually active as of late (16 boards and 21 assists in the last three games) and soldiered on after dislocating his finger early in the game.

–Sap got the shaft from the refs as usual (three fouls in about three seconds in the 4th), but Millslapped that weak stuff outta there three times and hit a couple of key shots in the 4th.

–KK, who’s gone 12-14 in the last three games despite extremely limited and sporadic PT, went 5-5 and showed real effort on D.

–Though it’s not apparent from the box score, Memo finally looked more like The Moneyman than Mr. Mediokur.

–Boozer? Meh. Like Sap, he hit a shot or two in the fourth but was 6-14 and committed way too many fouls in the 4th.

–CJ had 30 friends and family in the arena, and OMSW‘s shot was on (4-5).

–Ronnie P only played 5 minutes due to his injured shoulder, but I want to give it up to him for his grit and hustle over the last few games. There’s definitely some S2M mentality in that boy.

–Dick cried and whined and flipped his hair around. A lot. He also took a lot of shots and FTs.

Just as an aside, there was no way that Deron, injured or not, should have gotten smoked by his 40-year old childhood idol. Kidd was 7-11 and hit 4-5 of his 3-point attempts. Ah, screw it. The Jazz won, and it was good to see Kidd–one of the last remaining vestiges of players from the era of ball I grew up watching–still playing so well.

Beautifulamazingbewildering game stats:Steals
Jazz/9; Mavs/1

TOsJazz/4; Mavs/13

FG%Jazz/.532; Mavs/.412

3PT%Jazz/.471; Mavs/.381

Now THAT is what a win looks like (but just in case someone from the Jazz organization somehow or accidentally sees this, I must reiterate that a trade or some change is still needed. A win doesn’t change that, unless it’s preceded and succeeded by bunches of other wins).